New, more contagious coronavirus variants mean US must double down on mitigation, vaccination, CDC says
From CNN’s Maggie Fox
The threat of new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus means the US must double down on efforts to protect people until a large number can be vaccinated, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
A variant first identified in Britain known as B.1.1.7 is being found in the US as well, and modeling indicates it could worsen the already terrible spread of the virus across the country, the CDC researchers said.
“Multiple lines of evidence indicate that B.1.1.7 is more efficiently transmitted than are other SARS-CoV-2 variants,” the CDC team wrote in the agency’s weekly report, the MMWR.
12:27 p.m. ET, January 13, 2021
Reasons to be cheerful: Vaccines expert explains why he thinks US can stop spread of virus by June
From CNN Health’s Naomi Thomas
A health care worker administers a Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Pompano Beach, Florida, on January 6. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Even as the United States broke a record for the number of Covid-19 deaths reported in a single day, Dr. Paul Offit told CNN’s New Day there were several reasons to be hopeful that the coronavirus situation could get “dramatically better” soon.
Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and a member of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, acknowledged the “awful” numbers are likely to continue for a few months, but said there are reasons for optimism:
3:41 p.m. ET, December 28, 2020
CEO of L.A. hospital says staff may have to ration care if number of coronavirus patients rises
From CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas
Dr. Elaine Batchlor, CEO of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, speaks with CNN on December 28. CNN
Dr. Elaine Batchlor, CEO of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, said Monday that staff may soon have to ration care if the number of coronavirus patients rises.
Batchlor said her hospital is so overwhelmed with coronavirus cases, it is now treating patients in the gift shop and chapel.
“If we continue to see an increase in the number of Covid patients, we may be forced to do something that, as health professionals, we all really just loathe having to even think about,” Batchlor told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin.
Florida reports highest new daily Covid-19 case count since July
From CNN s Hollie Silverman and Melissa Alonso
People wait inside vehicles at a drive-through COVID-19 testing site at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida on December 10, 2020. Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that this is the highest daily new case count since July 16, when 13,965 cases were reported.
There were 17,344 new cases reported on Nov. 27 but that accounted for new cases from Nov. 26, when no new cases were reported.
There are now a total of 1,168,483 total Covid-19 cases in the state, the Florida Covid-19 data dashboard shows.